Education

Dad gets inspired by son to play a symphony

In a state-of-the-art recording studio in Fredonia, New York a symphony orchestra is in full bloom. The crescendo stirs the heart of everyone in the room, none more so than Nathan Felix , 31, of Austin, Texas.

Felix clinches his fist and pounds the air, his eyes closed tightly, as his “child” is born. Part of the irony is: The seed for this child was planted by Felix’s own human offspring, 8-year-old Revolution Felix.

The other irony is that none of it would have ever happened without that argument between Felix, his brother and his two best friends.

You see, after he earned an advertising degree from the University of Texas, Felix and those three companions formed a band and hit the road, traveling the country for three years.

“We were in Boston,” Felix recalled, “and we had to drive from Boston back to Austin.

“And so we, at that point, were at each other’s throats and we just couldn’t really stand being around each other, always sleeping in vans and stuff.

“What calmed us down was we would turn on the classical station up in Boston and through the different states.”

“And I just started to, I don’t know, in a haze of driving through the nights, I started to realize, ‘Wow, there’s a lot going on in here that I’ve never paid attention to.’